Vetpoint

Day 16 : The End

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:35:36 +0000

This is it, my last Blog about my trip as a vet volunteer in Tonga. It has been so much more than I could have ever expected. The people and animals of Tonga have touched my heart and I leave the island with tears in my eyes.
The coffee plantation was amazing and how lucky were we to wake up every morning to a lovely latte?! The stories, the laughs will be in my memory forever.
Places like this make you have a look at your own life and it emphasizes the things that really matter. I am truly inspired and I hope I have touched a few hearts here and there..like many have touched mine

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Day 15 : The long story has a rewarding end

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:24:51 +0000

Funny feeling for all of us today I think..today is the day we pack up the clinic. I feel sad about it. I have enjoyed the clinic, the people, the animals, the ups and downs and how strange will it be to work in a NZ clinic again where the waiting room is not a social meeting point. Alice and I decided to still see animals in the morning and then help with stock take in the afternoon. The first dog I saw was a sad story , but at the same time very heartwarming. This lovely man came in with his elderly more and a dog with a waggy tail in the backseat. He said this wasn’t their dog, ,but his mum has been upset for a while seeing this dog next door to her with a chain stuck to her neck. Then he heard on the radio that the vets were on the island and he told her neighbors he was going to take the dog to us and cut the chain off and then noticed that the Clip of the chain had grown into the skin. I told him we could remove it and we could also do a surgery so she couldn’t have any more babies. The amazement on their faces was priceless. Can you do that? They were so happy.luckily we managed to get the clip out of the skin, bending it back with superpowers!! We cleaned up the skin and also speyed her. This dog has a new home from now on and very proud and happy owners. We go from one amazement to the other,because we couldn’t believe what happened next…the dog with the broken leg was handed over..wow..we were all so so happy that we finally go the chance to help him. We were prepared for the amputation, but we have been for a while..but just didn’t think it was going to happen. Excitement all round! We made sure that this time the waiting room wasn’t a cafe and we were able to put our full attention to this surgery and Alice scrubbed in to help me and Narissa managed the anesthetic so beautifully. The whole surgery went smoothly and the end result looked beautiful if I may say so myself. There were tears of joy in that clinic that day. This dog is just so beautiful and a fantastic nature. We created a comfortable recovery area for him and kept him on fluids and pain relief. His recovery went well and he able to eat and drink a bit later that day.
I feel much happier leaving Tonga now.
Our friends from the ministry prepared a roast pig for us that evening and we sat on the deck , drank beer ate pork and toasted to a fantastic end to the clinic

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Day 14 : We are exhausted

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:41:16 +0000

What a crazy day. I’m not sure it’s a good idea even blogging right now because I feel like a complete zombie.But let’s give it a go. We arrived at the clinic this morning and we already had quite a few animals waiting for us. Alice needed to pick up her passport at immigration,, so I started the surgeries. After a busy morning, lining up puppies and bigger dogs and trying not to get confused who I who, we got a phonecall from a close friend of a very highly ranked person and he wanted to pick up a vet and a nurse to go to his place and desex one of his dogs. Ok, well, this society is very layered and in this situation..if he says..jump..you say..how high! We
went for a drive to the other side of the island and my jaw dropped when I saw this property..his staff told me this was the most luxurious place on the island..no kidding! I was completely blown away..what a completely insane place! We drove in and all the guard dogs surrounded us..not sure this is safe..we put some tables together outside, found the dog we wanted,had someone to hold,
since he wasn’t very nice, sedated him and we created our outdoorsy surgery room..in front of a fancy Audi, a fancy Harley davidson and another fancy motorbike..crazy! We took quite a few photos here,because I’ve never seen anything like this property, but it feels strange being here while in Tonga. We got back to the clinic
and we had more truckloads of animals waiting for us. A huge amount of them were owned by this mentally challenged lady who
was happily drinking a large amount of alcohol in the waiting room and I did smell some suspicious drug smells. We were working very hard and she was very loud and odd, but as much as she was annoying she was very entertaining as well with the comments she came out with. It was very amusing to us when we were all completely exhausted, doing surgeries on automatic pilot, dealing
with out sore backs and poor light and running out of suture material..and she came out with…you’re doing surgery on Dolly Parton!!! Haha this is how she named her oldest girl dog.
I had dogs coming out of my ears today and during this chaos we had another high powered visit to discuss the amputation dog again. My goodness, I feel like a broken record by now, I have had this discussion way too many times by now. He said they were going to bring the dog in tomorrow morning..it’s all about timing, last day we’ll be here, we’re running out of drugs and suture materials, but I will be so so happy if we finally get this dog on the table..I’m not convinced though..

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Day 13 : Getting closer to a black belt!

admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 08:16:30 +0000

It was a bit difficult waking up this morning. We enjoyed a few maka beers last night and I do feel sorry for the men in the house..such a minority. They tend to go to bed early so they can actually rest. All the girls stay up, hang out in the lounge,drink beers and watch heaps of episodes of United States of Tara on the projector screen. What a life! We got ourselves organized for a village visit this morning. We picked Nou, the Tongan guy from the ministry, up at he clinic and we went to a village called Vaini. Four of us arrived at the local hall with a car filled of surgery materials..but the door was closed. Can’t say this surprises me anymore in Tonga. Nou told us that he had made arrangements and it would have announced in chuch , so people would bring their dogs to us today. We went to his house to see what the deal was and he said we were at the wrong hall. Then Nou drove us to the Mormon school..another phenomenon here in Tonga..they have the nicest buildings and grounds, only English can be spoken. They also provide a lot of besotted dentistry and good sports..but you have to be a Mormon though. Anyways, apparently we needed to talk to the Dean here. But when we got there plans changed again and we were taken to the Church hall..strange…I doubt they want me to do bloody surgeries in here!! We got there, ,it was beautiful, lovely stage, tables set up and even rows of chair for an audience..hmmm..not sure about this. Finally we found out that it was a huge miscommunication and they thought we would come over to demonstrate animal care to them..but I didn’t have any dogs!!! Right, that’s that then, no village visit. Nou had to go and check on the workers building his new house and he was also pretty keen to show us that. We also saw his little flock of sheep with a few lambs..the breed is called Fiji Fantastic…I reckon
that’s an awesome name!! He also owns his own beach..nice for some! He took us out there to show us and it has been in his family for a long time and it will pass on to the oldest son..if there are no sons, then I guess a girl is ok too he said. Fascinating family history in this tiny village. Then we hurried back to the clinic because apparently there were dogs everywhere! Great, let’s do some work then. We were workin hard for hours and hours, without too many problems. The only thing is that Nou was doing a bitch Spey and apparently she’d been on heat not too long ago and the tissue was pretty friable. He wasn’t too alarmed when he got a bleeder and the whole tummy filled up with blood. he just looked up at Alice, the other vet. She definately felt the urgency and rushed in to help him and I had to drop my things and get in there too. We managed to get it under control again with a great team effort, if I may say so and we al remained calm and got the job done quickly. No one around us even knew what was happening. As per usual there are lots of people around who hang out there for hours and hours and might bring several dogs at the same time.
We were all pretty tired at the end of the day and it’s getting more and more challenging since we a running out of stuff in this last week of the clinic. But not to worry, we are incredibly resourceful and everything got done.
Time for another Taekwondo lesson for me. I’m really enjoying it and I just love seeing these guys being so passionate and dedicated to what they do and I love donating to them, so they can keep this going and inspire more and more people in Tonga. My legs are pretty sore after this session..so much to learn! I came back home and Jo had prepared the most beautiful food.A swordfish dish.Yum!
I forgot to mention yesterday that Kax went to one of the primary schools with Jo’s dad and also took their cocker spaniel, Molly. To teach kids about pets and how to look after them. She asked the kids what kind of dog they thought Molly was. ” a fat sausage dog” umm..no..” a poodle”…no.. ” a sheepdog” ..no..haha, they would have never seen a dog like her before, because all the dogs in Tonga look very similar and they all have the same loop in their tails..we call them the special “Tongan Tail”

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Day 12 : last week in the clinic

admin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 05:30:49 +0000

Deirdre, one of our volunteers who ran the front desk for us, went back home today. This will be the week of people leaving and us trying to do as much work as we can, since the island won’t have any vets available till November. We made a radio ad last week to try and get many people in with their pets. We discovered today that the translation into Tongan wasn’t exactly what we wanted, so mixed messages were sent. Ok, let’s fix that today and get some decent radio ads out there. Today was a great day in the clinic, we did lots of surgeries, we all worked smoothly together and the people coming in were just so generous with donations and so sweet and grateful. Very satisfactory day for us. All of us have many ideas about Meds we need , materials we need and how to improve the clinic. For instance, a microscope would be so helpful and dog food..there’s not much choice in dog food here and very limited supplies as well. We see quite a few fungal skin problems, parasites are problematic, all our suture material needs to be absorbable and long acting drugs would be great, since compliance isn’t that reliable. There are many many more things we can come up with. Today I paid the dog with the broken leg another visit and of course he’s in great spirits, his skin is improving, but he can’t put any weight on his leg. The one thing you learn in Tonga, is patience. Yet another conversation followed to try and convince that amputation would be a great option for him..I live in hope.
I haven’t written about some of the funny things that happened yesterday. We were on the ferry with a few guys from New Zealand, who were over to train the Tongan rugby team before the world cup and two of them were on the ferry. They had just returned from Fiji, where Tonga played Fiji. Tese guys had. A day off to relax on the island. When I was on the island, I got a phone call from Jo, assuming if I could take the next ferry back to the mainland to stitch up one of her friends, who cut her finger deeply..a friend of the human kind..ummm..hmm..welcome to Tonga ! They couldn’t find a doctor available in the hospital or clinics. Ok, well, I got ready to go back when luckily I got a phone call that they managed to find a doctor. I was very grateful!
It was. It was a busy day today and everybody is in great spirits, so now we can sit back on the deck with some Tongan beers. Tomorrow, Kax, Nou and me will go to one of the villages to do some surgeries. We got permission for it and we’ll probably do the surgeries in the town hall or something.it’s like a big stage show and I’m providing the entertainment.

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day 11 : beach day turns into beach weekend

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 08:12:52 +0000

Another beautiful, sunny day in Tonga ! Thought it would be nice to sleep in, but when the sun is shining like this, it is hard to stay in bed. It is Sunday, so nothing is open in Tonga and since I had already been to church last weekend, I didn’t feel the need to go again this week. This thought was shared by the rest of the house. Four of us decided to take the ferry to Pangaimotu island again today..gosh this feels like scene from the movie “50 first dates” Tonga is small and we do run in to people we have met before or people who have brought their animals into the clinic. White people are called ‘Palangi’ in Tonga and all the Palangi’s hang out on this island on Sunday, because you can have a drink and have food and sunbathe in a bikini.Kids often yell it out to you when you pass them on the road…Palangi’s !!!! The other thing kids do when you see them is say “Byeee”. They actually mean hi, but in Tonga, hi and bye is the same thing so they use bye in either way. It was a beautiful day on the island. We had fun sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling,chatting away, having lunch, playing darts, drinking Tongan beers…life is pretty good here! We finished the day off with a lovely group dinner at ‘the cottage breeze’. Back to work again tomorrow!

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Day 10 : Beach day

admin — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:19:27 +0000

I was supposed to join Tonga’s triathlete for an ocean swim this morning..but I missed it..we slept in..
Bit of a funny night in town last night. Jo prepared an amazing dinner for us..and after that, four of us went out. We were dropped off in town and within one minute of entering the bar, the first grope happened. Welcome to Tonga! Not having any of that, so a bit of an argument with an obviously intoxicated local followed. then a little dominance act on his part, trying to overpower me..he shouldn’t have done that. Time to get serious and at least threaten with violence..that worked and off he went and he got kicked out after that..ah Karma..thank you! Turned into a very interesting night and like to call it a cultural experience when the guys from the US marine were thrown into the mix as well and when it became apparent that the local girls show even more promiscuous and provocative behavior than the local guys. Bars close at around 12.30 am and we managed to find a taxi home. The trip took about 40 min and he only charged us 10 pa’anga. I don’t think I have ever had to bargain with a taxi driver to ask more! We agreed to pay 20.
I was very surprised to see that there were a lot of police stops along the way for breath tests. Apparently the legal limit for drinking here is lower than in NZ, but we’ve seen quite a bit of drinking and driving during the week. Maybe they only check on Friday nights.
Saturday morning the sun was shining and the sky was blue. Fantastic! No work for us today, so we all piled up in the cars and drove into town to go to the markets..wow..a huge amount of stalls with an overwhelming diversity of stuff. Loud music, people crawling around ants, stalls selling a combination of washing powder, shoes, food and bra’s. It was good fun checking it out, followed by a lovely lunch of ota ika (raw fish) in the local cafe. One of Jo’s friends,
Kevin, is celebrating his birthday tonight and we are all invited to come and join him and Justin for a party. We stocked up on Tongan vodka and watermelons. After this we drove to the western tip of e island to one of the resorts, so we could enjoy some sunbathing and snorkeling. In the resorts it’s allowed to wear a bikini, otherwise
you’d have to cover up with clothes to swim in the sea. While we were at the resort, there was also a private functioning going on, a wedding anniversary..I have never seen a cake of that size and they provided us with great entertainment of dancing and music while we
soaked up the sun.
Later that evening we went to the party and this house was simply amazing.like it has been picked up in Hollywood and dropped here in Tonga. We had a lovely dinner and the alcohol was flowing nicely for everybody in this international mix of people.

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Day 9 : Doctor’s visit

admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 06:46:22 +0000

The good thing when I woke up this morning, was that the sun was shining through the palm trees..good!Enough of the rain already.the bad thing was that my cold is just not going anywhere, my chest is hurting and I keep coughing and now it got to the stage that I started losing balance and can’t hear very well anymore..hmmm..maybe those expired antibiotics weren’t as great as I thought then Time to go and see a doctor this morning. Jo picked me up from the clinic later in the morning and the doctor I saw was an English guy who’s been on the island about two months. He said my chest was pretty wheezy and got me a bag full of drugs. He told me that most drugs used on Tonga were recently expired, since it’s otherwise too expensive for people to afford medication. He showed me pictures on his laptop of cases he regular sees here in Tonga..wow..scabies, fungal infections, psoriasis, larvae crawling under the skin, centipede bites..the wounds were so fascinating. I have never seen them like that before, but that is because the locals will only go to the doctor if something doesn’t disappear in two or three months and then still they try and use Tongan medicine. It turned into a very fascinating chat..basically a vet and a doctor comparing notes! The conversation regarding hygiene continued when I got back to the clinic and we were discussing hygiene. Apparently the women here don’t used tampons when they have their period, since the church doesn’t allow it, because they won’t be seen as virgins anymore then. So they need to use big pads or even diapers. Often their skin isn’t very good and this could be because they use coconut oil on their skin often, which blocks the pores and the skin cannot breathe. How about washing themselves? Often just rinsing or using a bar of soap, also to wash their hair or using washing powder !! As I have said previously, Tonga is such a fascinating place. This afternoon we had an Asian man bringing in a sick puppy. I was listening to the consultation and communication is a real issue. Yet another culture on this island. The Chinese run a lot of the road side grocery shops and there’re also an organisation called china aid who comes in to help here, like Aussie aid and the American peace corps. When it was all explained to him what to do with the puppy, he asked how much. Trying to explain to him that we are a charity and it’s for free but rely on donations, didn’t get through very well. I think we should have just told him an amount! It’s also a bit awkward telling people not to eat the puppy now he’s had drugs. You never know if they actually eat dogs or whether they will insulted hen you suggest they might be eating puppy. I had to laugh when I heard the girls say to him ‘ no puppy for dinner tonight’ Turns out he’s the consul for the Chinese consulate in Tonga and he had his driver with him. The clinic is a bit of a crazy place! Earlier in the afternoon there was a posh lady with her “handbag piglet”..wonder if she realizes how big they get..and at the same time a pet chicken was in while being surrounded by growly dogs…welcome to our days
Well, it’s Friday today..this is funeral day in Tonga and Thursday is wedding day here. The other thing is that Tongans don’t really work a lot on Fridays, so we never know if our Tongan Helpers show up or not. They both did! Lucky!
After work me and Kax went for a drive on the back roads, managing the potholes and making our way through a wilderness of palm trees. We went to see the blow holes. Incredible waves breaking close to shore..truly spectacular, just at the time of sunset. Another example of Tonga life. Two small children were on the rocks behind the gate form where you watch the massive waves. This could never ever happen in a western country, was so dangerous! They were dragging a dead piglet around on a string and popped it in and out of the ocean before dragging it back on land. I’m not sure whether they were playing with it, fishing with it or what! When they came back up they just stood there staring at us. They don’t speak any English but were very fascinated with us. The blowholes are in a tiny wee village where pigs with many piglets run around on the road.
Well, it’s Friday night in Tonga, which is party night..we’ll find out

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Day 8 : Tonga Taekwondo

admin — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:59:30 +0000

We had a great time at the resort last night. Of course we got lost again, seems to be the thing to do around here. It was on the other side of the island. It is right in the beach. When we parked the car we walked down the lantern lit stairs onto the beach and we were welcomed by our host, the guy we met in the clinic earlier on. He introduced us to the rest of the crowd and he was grateful to us for helping him. The dinner was beautiful..lots of different kinds of food..seaweed, sea cucumber,octopus, ata ika (raw fish in coconut..one of my favorites!!), fish, Tongan dessert,kumara, taro, clamps and of course pork..such an amazing feast! Only cocktails will
go well with this, so cocktails all round. After dinner we all walked down the beach and into a cave where they performed the local dances..fantastic! This morning it was raining, raining, raining…this is not great for my tan..We got to the clinic a bit later an usual and this is the first day we were seeing quite a few cats. I was expecting them to be really quite wild, but they were timid and too scared to move, which made it a bit easier for us. The discussion about the high status dog continued today as well. He was supposed to come
in today for his amputation, but no, the dog wasn’t handed over..so another day goes by. We discussed it again and they really wanted the bandage taken off so the sea could heal, but I wasn’t willing to do that..this would be taking it too far for me ethically. I handed over some more pain relief and antibiotics to give the dog in the meantime, but we really need to this amputation soon..we will wait again. The good news is that I am able to stay another week, work and flights got sorted today.
In the afternoon we saw a dog with the most incredible infection of an old neuter wound..he’s probably had this infection for the last two months and I can safely say I have never seen anything quite like it..this visit was followed by a visit from two tiny pups, who had lost their mother and were happily sucking our thumbs. Later on four small pups arrived in the boot of a car and they were all shaking along..hmm..looks like some sort of intoxication..
Later in the afternoon we were back at the house and Jo was telling stories..I love her stories..it gives us so much more insight into Tongan culture and society..it just never seizes to amaze me. Some of her stories are so sad though that you just feel like crying.
Two of us went the local Taekwondo class tonight. I have no background whatsoever in martial arts..but hey I’ll give it a go! When we went whale watching last week, we met this local guy on thhe boat, called Yvanne, ,and his two sisters, Ruha and Minara. Such nice and vibrant people. Tongan people have this gift to make others feel welcome and at ease. Anyways, Yvanne takes this class.
We went over and there were about 12 of us there.. He knew I had never done any martial arts, but was very patient in explaining the moves and showing them slowly. I loved watching the other boys and girls, they are obviously far more experienced and were so graceful, controlled and respectful. I’ll definately go back again next week. Yvanne brought me a flash drive with the underwater whale footage from when we were swimming with the whales..so good to have that! The other thing I find with Tongan people is that they are so giving, but I just find it a bit uncomfortable to take things from them. We can do two classes in Taekwondo for free, but I feel much happier giving them a donation..the class was really good!

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Day 7: frustrating times

admin — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:56:28 +0000

As much as you can tell yourself that what you’re doing is better than these animals have ever had and that when you have to work with what you have you can only do so much..it still feels so frustrating though! We have a limited amount of anesthetics available to us and also. A limited variety, so there have been some weird and wonderful anesthetic protocols. Also a bit of hit and miss what suture material I can find and a lot of the pups bleed a lot and the blood seems thinner and I wonder what kind of infections are responsible for this. My guess would be Ehrlichiosis. Some of the young pups take a long time to go to sleep and can have quite prolonged recovery times. Sometimes I feel like I am doing surgery behind a hamburger joint counter and people are waiting for their food to arrive. It’s a social occasion to bring these animals in and they will wait for hours and chat and watch us work. It can be difficult, when you do have a bleeder and trying to get some control of a tummy filled with blood and the happy laughter and chatter is surrounding you. This is Tonga !The other frustration is the continuing discussing regarding the very high class dog. The dog has a very broken leg which was initially put in a cast but that had only made the problems worse. When we took the cast off the smell was incredible so were the sores, swelling, lack of circulation and total lack of healing. This leg needs to come off and quick. Quick…no way. The discussions go back and forth between a various amount of people in various high places. We finally managed to get permission and I was geared up to amputate this leg, but then the dog didn’t show up and the discussion continued. People had decided that it was cruel to amputate and they would take it the sea and the sea would heal. Okay..I do need to go over there in person and have a chat. I was taken over and I did manage to convince them. But for how long..I will only believe it once this dog is on the table tomorrow! More frustration follows..my head cold got worse and worse and now my chest is aching and I am amazed with the amount of snot one woman can produce. Jo took me into town to get some antibiotics. This was a funny experience. You just go up to the counter and tell the lady what you want. I said I wanted some doxycycline, so she finds some and shows it to me..hmm expiry date 05/2007.. Ok, well what else have you got..tetracycline..ok, yeah, well just give me some of that..it was expired as well, but only in 02/2011..that’ll do! She said she’d give me a discount, sweet! Instead of 10 pa’angi it was 7, great deal. Later in the day when planning the amputation we realized we didn’t have any morphine..no problem..one of the Tongan helpers, Nou, went over to the hospital, told them what he needed and came back with a packet of morphine..sweet, this is Tonga!
On a positive note, we did lots of surgery today and the owner of one of the pups runs a resort at the beach and invited us all over tonight..sounds good to us! We went home to drink some Malibu and pineapple and some of the girls are getting Tongan tattoos done at the house…it’s all go!! Ah let me just say that dessert in town last night was absolutely spectacular!! There was a real island desert..pavlova with banana, pineapple, lime and coconut

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